In recent years, camera products have been made smaller in size and handier for portability improvement, leading to sharply increasing photographing opportunities. And yet camera users desire still more compact cameras, so that studies on how to miniaturize cameras without sacrificing their high image quality is now widely under way. Since the 135-size roll film for general use is loaded in a standard film magazine, it is a stumbling block to designing a new camera with its body thinner than that of conventional ones. In order to make the magazine smaller, it is most simple and effective to thin the film, i.e., light-sensitive material, to be loaded therein, which can be carried out by making its support thinner than conventional thickness of about 120 .mu.m.
However, if the support is thinned, the physical balance between the support and the photographic component layers becomes unstable or lost to tend to cause defects such as curling, cracks, emulsion peelings, wrinkles, etc., on the light-sensitive material. These defects results in film transport troubles occurring in the manufacture/packaging process of the light-sensitive material, in the film winding/take-up process inside a camera, and also in the film processing/drying process in a photofinishing laboratory to thus cause scratches or distortion to appear on the image surface of the film.
Particularly in the case of a perforated roll-form color light-sensitive material, it has become apparent that its margins with perforations sometimes are found creased or broken on the transport rollers inside the drying process of an automatic processor. The above is considered a trouble peculiar to a thin support due to the fact that there occurs no trouble of the type mentioned above in a color light-sensitive material having a conventional thick support.
It has also become apparent that the thin support-having light-sensitive material, particularly if loaded to remain for a long period of time inside a small magazine or cartridge with a limited capacity, a plastic cartridge, or a camera unit, is liable to get curled under a high temperature or low humidity condition. If the film is curled inside a cartridge, it is subjected to undesirable load at the time of winding or take-up of it, thus causing the film to get scratched or to form an out-of-focus image thereon at the time of exposure.
In order to restrain curling or prevent edge crease from occurring in the developing process, it is considered necessary to provide a backing layer on the opposite side of the support to photographic component layers, but where the support is a thin one, the backing layer to be provided needs to have nearly the same thickness as the total thickness of the photographic component layers for obtaining an objective effect, which not only lessens the merit for making cameras smaller, lighter-weight and handier but causes the backing layer surface to be subject to tar stain that may be attributable to the developer solution. Accordingly, resolution of the above problems is essential for carrying out the development of a small, light-weight and handy camera.